Boudreau: 'Theo Is Our No. 1 Goalie'

Coach Bruce Boudreau wouldn't divulge his starting goaltender for Saturday's game, but he did have this to say when asked if he planned to make an announcement this morning: "You'll see it in the warmup. But look it, it's not a big surprise -- Theo is our No. 1 goalie."

Boudreau was then asked when he planned to inform the goalies of his decision.

"When I feel it's appropriate," he said. "When you guys leave."

Pressed on the matter, Boudreau added: "It's never safe to assume anything. Assume what you want to assume. But I'm not saying anything. I will think Lundqvist is playing, though."

Theodore, meantime, said he's still preparing for tomorrow's game as if he's starting. He said that he hasn't discussed tomorrow with Boudreau. But that's not unusual, Theodore said.

"It was a tough game, but now I'm thinking about tomorrow's game and that's all," Theodore said. "Everything is just like usual. There's not much to talk about right now. He didn't say anything, but I'm assuming that I'm in."

I'd have less trust in Kolzig than Theodore to recover from that type of performance. Its been well documented all season that Theodore goes on hot & cold streaks - and he usually needs a bad game to get him started.

Until experience proved weak, you go with it. One game is not weak - that's why it's a seven games series.

i was just at practice. ...they finished up the formal part of practice with a drill where they divided the team up into two teams. ..put about a dozen pucks on each blue line and then each team went one at a time against varly and theo to see which team could put the 12 pucks past the goalie first. . .theo LOST. . .now it must be noted that theo had to face OV, sasha, feds, green, and flash on his team, while varley only had to face the likes of nicky, koz, nylander, fehr, etc. .so it wasn't quite even, but varley looked extremely solid this morning. . .we were thinking that this drill wasn't doing much good for theo's confidence, thats for sure ....sure hope he steps it up if he is the starter tomorrow. . .

This is the right decision. But on a short leash. If he lets in soft goals, yank him. If you start Varlamov, you ruin Theo's confidence. Then if Varly struggles, the team is screwed. Jose's been here before. Let's see if he's still got it in him to come back with a strong performance. If not, we'll see what the kid has.

Is there a line that the media types understand that differentiates "getting the story" from being nothing more than a distraction to the team and its preparations? Or does the journalist covering the team recuse him or her self from such considerations? I'd think that those who cover the Caps would be interested in seeing the Caps advance, and would not seek to make a nuisance of themselves asking questions to which all observers already know the answer.

by the way; unless i drank an entirely inappropriate amount of beer on wednesday, there were 5 other guys out on the ice for the Caps (most of the time). Never saw the stretch with JT against the entire Rangers team. next topic!!!!!!

My thoughts yesterday were that we had to start Varly. The risk of Theo laying another egg could mean wrecking everyone's confidence, including the fans. But now I'm thinking with an extra day to let it sink in, Theo is going to play a top-notch game, and hopefully our D will play their best game of the season (going to need to) and start blocking some shots and clearing the damn puck when it gets on their sticks.

I really cannot believe that so many of you have the gaul to say that Schultz is not an NHL caliber defenseman. Basically you are calling BB an idiot. The man has played 174 NHL games and is a quiet stay at home defenseman. He has low PIMs which means, even though you guys don't want to admit it, he plays outstanding positional hockey. I'm tired of hearing how everyone that thinks Schultz is a good defensman is an idiot. He played a regular shift on the 4th best team in the NHL this season. Not everyone can be as flashy as Green. Not everyone is willing to make a big hit like Erskine at the risk of missing an assignment. All these guys bring something different to the game that resulted in a 50-24-8 season. They also DOMINTATED the Rangers, and Theo layed an egg as predicted and LOST the game single handedly. If he would have done his part the game would not have been 3-3 with less than 10 minutes remaining. I do feel he will redeem himself. He doesn't have a choice, if he doesn't, he will not have a team interested in him after he's done with us. HIS future is riding on how he responds to this.

Per Japers Rink: "Historically, NHL squads that found themselves down 1-0 in a first-round best-of-seven after dropping the first game at home have gone on to win 49.3% of those series (thanks in part to a .681 Game 2 winning percentage)."

StanleyCup1907: Please do NOT go away. I want you here for the entire ride. The Rangers will be lucky if they can extend this to a game 6. The Caps will dominate the rest of the series and Theo will be in line to do his part. No need to respond now just sit back and watch...enjoy...LET's GO CAPS!!!

I seem to recall that Scotty Bowman was the master of goalie deception. He would tell goalie A he's starting and then start goalie B. I heard that this went over poorly with many goalies, but it sure worked a bunch. (It doesn't hurt to have a 4th line of future hall of famers like they did for awhile...)

As I said yesterday, there's a bunch of theories on handling goalies and the correctness of the theory changes regularly depending upon the last game's outcome.

Like most of the reasoned commenters, I'm certainly not sold on Theo, but I thought the stories over the last two days were encouraging. He knew he wasn't great, he thought through why that was and wants to fix it. Way better attitude then "I was screened" or "The D got beat" or whatever excuse.

We need to get to Henrik early tomorrow. A nice 2-0 intermission lead with a couple solid stops by Theo gets us going in the right direction. Although, this being the caps, and this being the playoffs, I'll believe it when I see it. Not being a pessimist or a hater but the mental breakdowns have to stop.

Go watch that OT goal from Game 7 a few times boys, that should get 'er goin.

saintex: Yes, if he were to give up 4 goals on 25 shots yes. If he wins a shootout and faces 40 and give up 4, NO, because he would at least have a 90% save percentage. Remember, it's not necessarily that he gave up 4 goals, the type of goals, and even his rebound control on his saves that has everyone's painties in a knot. If he gets hung out to dry, makes a couple of nice saves, like Thomas did when the Bruins and Canadiens were tied 2-2, we're not on Theo either. The fact is though, he didn't play well at all, and he didn't play well against FLA either. He's given up 10 goals in the last two games.

@fan, I agree on the type of goals. Like I said yesterday, there were two he should have stopped and that made the difference. I'm cool with Theo but that was his cross to bear...and he did. But, if we win 6-4, do we care too much how it all happened?

I wouldn't be shocked to see Varlamov get the call in Game 3 under your scenario but I also wouldn't be surprised to see Theo back in there. History tells us that his problem is consistency in that he has a bad game every once in a while, not that he is consistently bad. He's undefeated in Round 1 of the playoffs so he can play well enough for this team to win.

Is there a line that the media types understand that differentiates "getting the story" from being nothing more than a distraction to the team and its preparations? Or does the journalist covering the team recuse him or her self from such considerations? I'd think that those who cover the Caps would be interested in seeing the Caps advance, and would not seek to make a nuisance of themselves asking questions to which all observers already know the answer.

Funny thing about the 12 puck drill is there was no D I am assuming. I guess BB is practicing game situations after all. It really suprises me how the last could be pinned at all on Theo. It ended up being a 1 v 1 on Theo and the shot was from the bottom of the circle. To quote Matthew Barnaby in the ESPN chat (can't believe I am agreeing with him) "Avery should have been called for a penalty on Gomez's goal and Schultz should have been called for tripping himself on the Dubinski goal. They will bounce back and win the series."

"If I can't practice, I can't practice. It is as simple as that. It ain't about that at all. It's easy to sum it up if you're just talking about practice. We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game last it's my last but we're talking about practice man. How silly is that?

Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice. When you come to the arena, and you see me play, you've seen me play right, you've seen me give everything I've got, but we're talking about practice right now.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Rangers are still on the ice and they just got a scare.

Nik Antropov collided with Henrik Lundqvist during a drill, leaving the Rangers star netminder favoring his left arm/shoulder. Lundqvist hammered the glass with his stick in anger while noticeably stretching his left arm, which is his catching glove side.

But he stayed in net and didn't leave practice, so it can't be too bad. More on this later.

Please, please read what fanohock1 posted about Schultz. I've defended Schultz here before, but he/she says it better than I ever have. There are lots of different kinds of defensemen who can provide value to a team. Please read and think about fanohock1's wisdom and stop trying to make happen what similar unappreciative fans did to Larry Murphy.